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Trip Insurance PSA

Before every trip, I verify my credit card details and insurance coverage. I also consider any trip insurance beyond my medical coverage. I typically do not purchase any trip cancellation insurance because airlines have always worked with me and most if not all hotels will allow me to cancel. The caveat is any large expenditures like tours. We've done one Viking cruise and I purchased insurance for that. Now we are doing our first tour, a RS. I'm going to see what insurance might cost and evaluate our risk. RS allows folks to cancel up to 30 days prior and reschedule to something else. This is pretty generous, but I'll price out insurance.

I once again verified what I have for out of area medical insurance which I believe is one of the most significant pieces and why I'm posting this. Many may not be aware of insurance including medical evacuation insurance that is already included in your existing coverage. Perhaps the David Ortiz shooting prompted it, but I dug more deeply this time. The program I have on my health insurance is "Assist America" which does cover evacuation and care in the U.S. and abroad. The big caveat is that you need to call them before any services are provided/ordered. They will coordinate care and assist in finding specialists and English speaking MDs. They also help with other issues like CC loss/theft, getting prescriptions filled, and many other things that can happen.

I wanted to share this because I feel the medical piece is very important and also, folks may have coverage and not realize it. Be aware that like a lot of insurance coverage, there are deductibles and coinsurance, but also maximum out of pockets.

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I evolved from no trip insurance (pre-Medicare where our group medical insurance included foreign travel coverage), to "silver level" comprehensive trip insurance to now only medical/medi-evac insurance (plus Medicare Supplemental F).

As noted, airlines are open to rescheduling (at a price) and hotels commonly allow cancellation (in advance). But some trip cost are either only partially refundable or not refundable. The question you need to answer in insurance or not is how much can you afford to write off in the event of a worst case situation. In most cases, your loss would not be the 100% of trip coverage required by the trip insurance policy.